Endowed Professor of Molecular Signaling
School of Medicine
Michal Hetman, M.D., Ph.D. is an assistant professor of neurological surgery with a joint appointment in the department of pharmacology and toxicology and a team member of the Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center, where he leads the neurosignaling laboratory.
The neurosignaling laboratory researches therapies that can be applied immediately after a spinal cord injury to limit the loss of nerve tissue in the spinal cord. Currently, the laboratory is searching for the factors involved in regulating the death of neurons. This may identify the molecular targets for the interventions that can help minimize cell damage. His findings may lead to therapies for spinal cord injury, stroke, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
Hetman has ongoing research support from the Kentucky Spinal Cord and Head Injury Research Trust, the National Institutes of Health, NATO Life Science and Technology Program and the Alzheimer Association. He publishes regularly in peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Neuroscience, Neurochemistry International, European Journal of Biochemistry, Journal of Biological Chemistry and Journal of Neurochemistry.
He is a member of the Polish Biochemical Society, Society for Neuroscience and the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He is a recipient of the Young Investigator Award from the European Society of Neurochemistry.
He joined the U of L faculty after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Washington and establishing a research laboratory at the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, Poland. He earned his Ph.D. from the Medical Research Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences and his M.D. from the University Medical School of Warsaw, Poland.